copyparty

What is copyparty?

copyparty is an open source file server that turns almost any device into a web-based drop zone for uploading, downloading, and streaming files. It runs from a single self-contained Python file — no database, no build step, no install wizard — and works from any browser on your network.

What is copyparty best for?

People who want to move files fast between devices without handing them to a cloud service, and self-hosters who value a zero-friction setup. It’s ideal for quickly sharing large files over a link, running a home media drop, or spinning up a temporary server on a laptop, phone, or Raspberry Pi.

What can copyparty do?

• Serve files over HTTP(S), WebDAV, FTP(S), SFTP, TFTP, and SMB/CIFS from one install
• Resume interrupted uploads with the chunked, checksummed “up2k” system — no practical filesize limit, even behind Cloudflare
• Deduplicate identical files automatically using symlinks, hardlinks, or reflinks
• Stream audio and video in the browser with a built-in player, image gallery, and thumbnails (via FFmpeg/Pillow)
• Index files for fast search by name, size, date, and media tags
• Set granular per-folder, per-user permissions (read, write, move, delete, admin) through config
• Create shareable links with optional passwords and expiry dates

Where does copyparty fall short?

• It’s one-way only — copyparty explicitly will never do bidirectional folder sync like Dropbox, so it’s a server and transfer tool, not a sync client.
• There’s no native desktop or mobile app; access is browser-based (or via a mounted WebDAV/SFTP share), so you don’t get an OS-integrated sync folder.
• It has no real-time collaboration — no comments, co-editing, or shared document features that suites like Google Drive offer.
• The “do all the things” design surfaces most features as command-line flags and config, so tuning indexing, thumbnails, or dedup means reading the docs rather than clicking a settings page.

Is copyparty free?

Yes — copyparty is fully free and open source under the MIT license, with no paid tier, no feature gating, and no hosted upsell. You only pay for the hardware or server you run it on. Every capability is in the single downloadable file.

What does copyparty replace?

copyparty is a self-hosted alternative to Dropbox, WeTransfer, and Google Drive for the file-moving parts of those services — sharing large files by link, uploading from any device, and storing files you control. It doesn’t replace their sync clients or document-editing suites; it focuses on fast, private file transfer and serving.

FAQ

Is copyparty open source? Yes. copyparty is released under the permissive MIT license, so it’s free to use, modify, and self-host with no restrictions.

Can I self-host copyparty for free? Yes — it’s free with no paid edition. Download the single copyparty-sfx.py file (or use Docker, PyPI, or a prebuilt Windows executable) and run it; you only cover your own hardware.

Is copyparty a good Dropbox alternative? For sharing and transferring files it’s excellent and far lighter to run. But if you need a two-way sync folder on every device, copyparty isn’t built for that — a sync-focused tool fits better.

What do I need to run copyparty? Just Python — it runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, FreeBSD, and Arm devices like the Raspberry Pi. FFmpeg and Pillow are optional extras for thumbnails and media transcoding.